Power relations and local agency: a comparative study of European mining towns

Abstract

Local agency is marked by its structural boundedness including nation state strategies. We investigate the dynamic and mutually constitutive interrelationship between agency and state strategies to better understand and explain change in local development with the examples of four mining towns: Kiruna (Sweden), Zeitz (Germany), Most (Czechia) and Tatabánya (Hungary). They embody processes of industrial transition and mining activities that are heavily regulated by (supra-) national authorities and marked by constantly changing multiscalar power relations. We find local agency is constrained by rather specific relations and can be facilitated by more complementary ones, both on local level and between different scales.